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PC Users Switching to Apple Silicon
- Thread starter MacLawyer
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As far as enterprise goes. There is no business for ARM powered devices...Yet. As of now most companies fall into two categories. Specialized computers, or bottom of the barrel bulk HP and Dell POS. Does Bottom of the barrel are the vast majority. If all you need is a simple Java program and IE and you have random people using the computer every day. Why spend more then you have too. Mac Mini is two to three times more then these companies pay for a computer. They don't need power. They need basic.
Not only running, but actively developing - and I must know...
However, I do have a Mac for work as Web Apps are getting more and more widespread, even in change-resilient companies
I think some businesses will have a hard time moving away from Windows primarily because of the management. The tools afforded by Active Directory really allow a large enterprise to deploy software and manage computers in a way that is difficult to do with macOS.
Having done sysadmin work in the past, the third party MDM solutions for Apple are nowhere near as robust as what Microsoft provides. Having fine-tuned group policy, branch cache, and roaming profiles are something that is a few clicks in Windows Server.
People were using Windows PCs for that because most video production software still favors CUDA over Metal and Apple uninvited NVIDIA from all Mac parties. In fact, CUDA is still benchmarked as being superior in performance to Metal. Add to that the fact that all things being Intel, PCs are generally less expensive due to having a much wider amount of customization options versus whatever Apple lets you customize on their site.
Hard to imagine, but pre-M1, Windows PCs were actually a much better value proposition. Depending on how M1 Macs fare in native video production and photo editing software, that may still be the case.
For businesses, it's about device management. Apple forces you into mobile device management (which, in all fairness is better than something like an on-prem Active Directory GPO management schema); but it causes headaches for those that don't know what they're doing or don't have things set up accordingly. Also, as you said, why pay a premium to have a Mac when you can spend the exact same money on a PC that you have greater management control over (as well as a vastly larger software library for). Also, Dell, HP, and Lenovo's on-site repair options for business class PCs makes Apple's look positively lackluster by comparison. Apple still has a long way to go to be universally appealing in the business sector.
You must not be familiar with JAMF Pro then. JAMF Pro is pretty damn robust. Puts everything Microsoft has done that isn't Intune, Autopilot, and Azure AD to shame.
No offense, that is not a big market. A handful of those claiming to have switched is not going to amount to much. When you get the regular Joe walking through Best Buy to pick the Mac over any of the other offerings then you might have something. However that won't occur until there is sufficient software across a broad spectrum.
Not to burst you bubble I don’t see to many Macs in Radio Business! I say this because most US radio system run in Linux Servers running their stuff connected to CBS radio or some other system for song programs and using open source programs to run their stations!
I would have to disagree with you on that. My employer issues either the HP EliteBook 840 G7 or a 13" MacBook Pro for people who need to work remotely (something that is even more common now than it was even 6 months ago). The configuration of the HP I have costs $1349 on HPs website, whereas the base MBP that also has 8GB RAM and a 256GB SSD is $1299. However, the fans run almost all the time on this HP, and it is lucky to get 6 hours battery life when off the charger. With the exception of Cisco's Jabber and Microsoft Teams (both available on MacOS), everything we use is browser-based and runs in Chrome, so there's nothing from a software perspective that would prevent a wholescale shift to the Mac, and it would cost the company less.
There's a factor that's different this time: MAC virtualization with ARM windows and x86 / x64 emulation is very smooth. Users can definitely switch if they only need Windows-only light productivity software.
For gaming, that's a more complicated matter. But if Apple allows eGPUs again, you can definitely have Macs as viable alternatives.
I would predict an influx of new users in these segments:
- audio, video and photo editing (for obvious reasons)
- education
- business users who need to be mobile (performance and battery life of Apple Silicon are big wins here)
- data science, once some software kinks have been solved (M1 is extremely fast for many scientific applications, and now that Apple has Tensorflow support it's a steal)
- frontend and backend development, as ARM servers are quickly gaining traction
User groups that rely on some arcane highly specialized software will of course stay where they are now. Corporate users — well, that kind of depends on the company.
- audio, video and photo editing (for obvious reasons)
- education
- business users who need to be mobile (performance and battery life of Apple Silicon are big wins here)
- data science, once some software kinks have been solved (M1 is extremely fast for many scientific applications, and now that Apple has Tensorflow support it's a steal)
- frontend and backend development, as ARM servers are quickly gaining traction
User groups that rely on some arcane highly specialized software will of course stay where they are now. Corporate users — well, that kind of depends on the company.
At the same time eGPUs are expensive and the setup is often awkward — you can't be mobile and you need an external monitor for best performance. I don't think that eGPU users change the Mac gaming market in any significant way. Having a faster internal GPU is what makes a much bigger difference.
Pro game users often build their own desktop machines. While a powerful mobile computer is a plus, it's definitely not the focus. And plugging an eGPU (especially a prebuilt one) and manually installing drivers is not so much of a hassle as it seems.
Which part do you disagree with?
The part your employer is part of the top 20% of the PC market?
Cut off to be part of the top 20% is $999 and up for laptops and $699 and up for desktops.
No idea about the market statistics.
However, at least for my employer, the work issue laptop for telecommute is a Dell Latitude 3500, 1366x768, 8GB RAM, 128GB NVMe SSD for $600. That low resolution is frustrating to work on. I think I'd probably prefer going back to HDD if that meant a 1080p display (it's pretty much just a RDP client to the desktop PCs in the office).
Even the standard issue laptops were just ~$800, iirc.
Sadly, I don't have to imagine it. ?
Thankfully, we also have Edge, Firefox and Chrome available so we only need to use IE for the IE-specific business apps.
1366x768 is fine... In fact, my Hackintosh is connected with a external monitor that I was modified from a broken laptop screen. (Took apart broken laptop with good screen, brought the controller board from Aliexpress, made a wooden case)...
It's a pain if you need to work with multiple Excel files or multiple programs and you need all of them on screen at the same time.
1366x768 is ancient, just as bad as the 1280x800 of the old 13" MBPs. The 1440x900 of the MBAs were already more useful, and the bare minimum I would recommend today for mixed causal use.
In regard of the topic - can't believe many people are switching to Apple just because of the M1. But I can guess many people, including myself, are leaving from Apple soon. Why? Because they give up more and more standards/compatibility, like x86, Bootcamp, 32bit, CUDA, OpenCL which is just stupid if your OS market share is hovering around 10% and less. Yes, progress is important and good, but just like their MacBook ports decision, their way is too radical and prosumers + companies are getting annoyed. I gonna keep my MBP 2015 and iMac 5K 2017 with Mojave as long as I can, but then I guess, time to leave, as much as it hurts.
Remember when Macs had been solid Machines for 3D/CAD once? Guess what, Windows and Linux are the way to go now. One example: The Blender* developer team had always struggled with the poor OpenGL/CL implementation in prior OSX versions, and now, since it got entirely ditched for Apple's proprietary Metal bs, they stopped GPU rendering support in version 2.8 and newer. You have solid hardware, like a Radeon 580, Vega 48 or even XT5700 built in? Entirely useless in Blender now, because de-facto you have no OpenCL, no CUDA, no Vulcan, just Metal. And as next step, no more Intel either, just own chips. You think all software manufactures gonna transcode their apps for said 10% market share? The big guys, like Adobscription for sure, but for the rest, I doubt so.
*) Sad fact: Apple is pretty much the only big tech company left who isn't supporting the Blender foundation at all. Greedy Tim Cook pursues more important projects, like ATV+ or even more memojis...
In regard of the topic - can't believe many people are switching to Apple just because of the M1. But I can guess many people, including myself, are leaving from Apple soon. Why? Because they give up more and more standards/compatibility, like x86, Bootcamp, 32bit, CUDA, OpenCL which is just stupid if your OS market share is hovering around 10% and less. Yes, progress is important and good, but just like their MacBook ports decision, their way is too radical and prosumers + companies are getting annoyed. I gonna keep my MBP 2015 and iMac 5K 2017 with Mojave as long as I can, but then I guess, time to leave, as much as it hurts.
Remember when Macs had been solid Machines for 3D/CAD once? Guess what, Windows and Linux are the way to go now. One example: The Blender* developer team had always struggled with the poor OpenGL/CL implementation in prior OSX versions, and now, since it got entirely ditched for Apple's proprietary Metal bs, they stopped GPU rendering support in version 2.8 and newer. You have solid hardware, like a Radeon 580, Vega 48 or even XT5700 built in? Entirely useless in Blender now, because de-facto you have no OpenCL, no CUDA, no Vulcan, just Metal. And as next step, no more Intel either, just own chips. You think all software manufactures gonna transcode their apps for said 10% market share? The big guys, like Adobscription for sure, but for the rest, I doubt so.
*) Sad fact: Apple is pretty much the only big tech company left who isn't supporting the Blender foundation at all. Greedy Tim Cook pursues more important projects, like ATV+ or even more memojis...
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LOL what? So you don't like the path Apple has chosen moving forward such as making the fastest laptop computers on the market with the best graphics and insanely great battery life killing all other Windows laptops in their class and rivaling and beating much of the highest spec Windows laptops on the market? Hmm, sounds like you want one but are making excuses.